dirt dash

the dirt dash at hagg lake was the first bf race i did last year. so when registration opened for this year i had to sign up. since i saw some people with their dogs last year i decided to take mury with me. he could handle running 5.3 miles no problem. he's a tough little bastard. well, at least he can run a lot for such a little dog.

i got there a little later than i had wanted. i screwed around too much in the morning and decided i needed to clean my bathroom before i left. it did need it but i could have done it another time. so no warm up run and another pre race poop was in order. horrible thing was the toilet didn't flush. gross.

we lined up in the back. some guy asked me why i was running bf. i told him because it's fun and easier. then i noticed i didn't have my hr monitor on. crap. i though i packed it. i ran and checked my bag but i looked in the wrong pocket. i had it but didn't see it.

some other girls ran with a black lab. i passed them slowly on the start. i didn't mind starting so far back. last year when it broke onto the trail there was a pile up and we just walked the first little section downhill, too many people to run. this year way less people and way more mud. it was the wettest march in history.

mury struggled right away to keep up with me. the mud was deep. i watched him jumping through it. it came to his belly. he was not happy at all about running this. the previous saturday was his first race. he wasn't happy with either so i won't make him do anymore. he likes to run free and in this race he did. maybe it was the mud or the people, either way it was his last race.

i passed a lot of people and don't remember anyone passing me. last year i fell twice. this year i set an unbreakable record of six falls. yup. mud. this one guy i passed in vff's told me he fell twice. i told him i was at 4. he said i have to catch up. i told him he doesn't want my record and he agreed.

no other great moments here. just was a fun race to be back at. when it was over i went in the lake to rinse off and tried to get mury to follow. he got stuck in the grass and water. he wasn't happy about that. i wasn't too happy that after i got in the lake i noticed a water hose next to the bathroom where everyone was rinsing off. i took mury there. poor guy was shaking and cold. since they only had horribly cheap beer there we took off and spent the day with my mom.

there are some pics of us online on the xdog website but i'm to broke to buy those and post them here so see if you can find us if you're curious.

after the beginning. mury chasing me in the background.

he was even madder than this at the end.

i'm on that page and mury is on the following. if you look closely yo can see him far behind me. i went alone this year. had some fun but not an epic day.

foot traffic 5k

so this running shoe store opened up next to my work. cassie told me she was going to run the 5k so i thought i would join her. she didn't make it but mury and i did. i didn't get there as early as i hoped, i know it's a recurring theme with me.

i talked to the owner for a bit while mury followed his dog around. i was trying to walk around and warm up when the chef called me to come move my car. another person parked in the back wanted to leave. crap. i didn't think anyone would want to leave before all the festivities. i told him to grab my keys inside the pocket and move it. he did.

mury and i got near the starting line. i didn't really notice it was on the sidewalk. we were in the street and this pretty woman came over and started talking to me. i quickly checked. yup, huge rock on her hand. oh well. she wanted to know if i was running in my sandals and i told her i''m not sure. which i wasn't. it would be my third day in a row bf.

the owner started the race and called for all the fast people. he said basically if you're going to run 9m/m or below to go now so you don't run anyone over. i lined up. sadly we were behind a buch of young girls who weren't starting. i had to bust through them. i heard quite a few people yelling out that i was bf.

i stopped once to let mury do his thing. he kept up with me but i had to tugg can call him to keep him going. i saw the same woman passing me on the way back and she smiled. sadly i didn't see her at the store. when we finished mury refused to move. i let him off leash and started walking away. he followed me then but was just done with the leash.

we went to the store to check out the unveiling of big foot. the named him something like furberto salasquatch. don't quote me on that. i'm sure i got the first name right, not sure about the last name. it was a fun little race and i got faster. 2.5 minutes faster than the jingle bell 5k in december. that's quite and improvement. this maf training is paying off.

shamrock run

no more free home internet. that's right. i had free internet. no, i wasn't stealing. in order to steal you have to sneak and not want to be seen what you're taking. this was more of a gift. they had no lock on their wifi so i used it. was it nice? nah but it's over.

i ran the shamrock 15k with nick. we kept an easy pace going from the back. we got passed by everyone who was even further behind us. sad but i was trying to keep an easy pace and steadily speed up. nick was in some pain and didn't want to hurt himself more. we were fine with our slow pace. i wanted to start out well below my maf pace and just be over it into nearly race pace by the end. didn't work that way. i was in my maf zone when we crossed the starting line. nervous energy.

some guy at the start came behind me and said "dude, you're insane!". i just looked at him with a big smile and said "no, i'm crazy, you and everyone else here is insane running in those high heels." he got a confused look on his face. kind of like he didn't know if i was joking or he should punch me. lucky for both he just took off running faster. don't make smart ass comments if you can't play.

maybe about mile two nick had to stop for a business call. he didn't take them all before the race so we stopped at some coffee shop on Broadway. we weren't the only ones either. we ran through the pearl district before that and some bystander yelled at me " you're going to catch a cold!" i yelled back "so because you wear shoes you don't get sick?" he just laughed.

as we left the coffee shop the road had some incline. i told nick he sped up. he looked at me confused and said "no, you slowed down." damn. my ruse didn't work. i am slow uphill. very slow. since we kept a slow pace i decided to keep up with him. it paid off.

we went into the hills and were passing everyone. we passed a girl who sped up to talk to us. she told us she just spent $150 on some new shoes and here we were passing her bf and in huaraches. she wasn't happy. stupid us didn't give her details to join the brs.

nick had told me he had planned to speed up on the downhill and leave me behind. i just smiled. when we started downhill he couldn't keep up with me. i called for him to speed up and he just smiled. i love running downhill. it's the only time i can truly run fast. i let go a bit. my hr never got above 180. i could've gone faster a few times. i passed MANY people. one girl had a nice ass. i almost slowed down just to watch but kept on going. i gave one girl the thumbs up who was wearing some vff's. she was struggling. i hope my little bit of encouragement helped her.

at the finish line was the same thing. everyone standing right there instead of getting the hell out of the way. why is that? don't you know people are coming in and some are coming in fast? move. i did see Jesus at the finish. i asked him why was he wearing some Nike's. disappointing.

i waited on the side for nick. we never met up with Cassie, Dan, Jen, and Kevin. nick got to my place a little late and i parked too far away. i thought i picked a good meeting spot but where nick and i came from it was closer to the start then the other peeps were. i called them to meet us there but with 32,000 people we never met until the end. we saw Dan at the bag drop just freezing. it had rained lightly and Jen had dropped his clothes. bad move. i make sure to drop mine since everyone comes in at different times. i barely recognized Dan until he stared at me and smiled. see.

post race with fellow brs'ers

 OK, i can't rotate that pic. sorry but i'm just not that tech savvy. i painted my toenails green for this race. Jen made us tutu's but we didn't meet her so sadly i didn't get to race in a gloriously ridiculous outfit.

after drinking countless beers, they always find a way into my hands from strangers and me just grabbing them. we took off for some lunch. one reason i like to park far from the race is to have time to sober up while walking. it helps. what didn't help this time was seeing these two girls telling us this story that they got robbed while looking for a place to park before the race. some bum reached into the car. he was moving around so much they didn't notice him reach in to the back and take their purses. no racing, no purse, no charges. they had such a fun morning. i pet the girls dog in the beer garden because he was big with a Mohawk. I've never seen that before. i offered to buy them lunch. of course nothing came of it but a good conversation. well, at least i had some fun.